Review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a lyrical, impressive, horrific slow burn of a novel. Written simply, sometimes fragmented, sometimes in run-on sentences, lacking in apostrophes, the prose of the novel is straight forward yet poetic. It’s the story of a man and his son barely surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s the story of what happened to a family when the world ended. It’s the story of a world where terrifying people do what they need to survive, but a man and his son carry the fire of morality.

I was completely sucked in by this story and its language. It had been on my TBR for a very long time, then I received a free copy, and I’m so glad I did. I loved the language, the straightforwardness of it made the horrific seem normal, typical, and necessary. The poetry of the language expressed a father’s love for his child, and his inability to decide what survival and happiness should look like in a world of ashes. The ending was anticipated, but it couldn’t have ended any other way. As far as novels go, this one is pretty much perfect, and I highly recommend if you haven’t managed to pick it up yet.